The prospect of Donald Trump taking the Republican nomination is finally getting the attention of the GOP establishment.
New York Times columnist David Brooks published a very harsh anti-Trump column yesterday (“No, Not Trump, Not Ever“), and then repeated some of its main points on last night’s PBS NewsHour.
Brooks wrote:
Donald Trump is epically unprepared to be president. He has no realistic policies, no advisers, no capacity to learn. His vast narcissism makes him a closed fortress. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and he’s uninterested in finding out. He insults the office Abraham Lincoln once occupied by running for it with less preparation than most of us would undertake to buy a sofa.
Trump is perhaps the most dishonest person to run for high office in our lifetimes. All politicians stretch the truth, but Trump has a steady obliviousness to accuracy.
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He is a childish man running for a job that requires maturity. He is an insecure boasting little boy whose desires were somehow arrested at age 12. He surrounds himself with sycophants. “You can always tell when the king is here,” Trump’s butler told Jason Horowitz in a recent Times profile. He brags incessantly about his alleged prowess, like how far he can hit a golf ball. “Do I hit it long? Is Trump strong?” he asks.
In some rare cases, political victors do not deserve our respect. George Wallace won elections, but to endorse those outcomes would be a moral failure.
And so it is with Trump.
And on the NewsHour, Brooks spoke of the plight of Republicans who are repulsed by Trump.
Well, first of all, in the big Tuesday states, 40 percent of voters in most of the states said, if Trump were the nominee, they’d consider a third party. And so that’s some serious disaffection. You do not see that. Usually, people are rallying around at this point.
And, secondly, there are a lot of Republicans, including myself, who find him morally repulsive. And he’s just not — there are some things more important things than winning an election. And supporting a guy who tears at the social fabric, who insults the office of the presidency by completely unprepared for it, who plays on bigotry and fear, who is the sort of demagogue our founders feared would upset the American experiment in self-government, well, that kind of guy, you just can’t support, even if it means a defeat.
And I think a lot of Republicans feel that way, which is why you get those 40 percent numbers of defectors.
Strange and dangerous times we’re in.
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I rarely agree with David Brooks but he made so many valid points that I had to repeat his comments to my wife. Local GOPers must be pulling their hairs at their predicament in November.
And the wonder of it all is that there are still far too many people who think he is so wonderful. What in the world is going on in our country that he could get so far?
“What in the world is going on in our country that he could get so far?”
some Americans are thoughtful, disciplined, intellectual and well-educated.
some are arrogant egotisical cowboys who never listen to other people. the only way to get to know is to travel around the country and see it. unfortunately, the Web does the world no justice compared with experience. if you spend your entire life in a relatively small isolated environment, every day will bring unexpected surprises from the rest of the planet. America is very strange but consider this: we’re still nothing like Russia, let alone Africa and the Middle East. perfection doesn’t exist and never will, even in Japan.
Too little, too late by the former Republican standard bearers. trump is now the face of the party.
The problem with Brooks and others of his ilk critizing Trump, is that they fail to acknowledge that Cruz, Ryan, and many other Republican leaders are equally dishonest and would make equally horrifying presidents, if in other ways. Yes, Trump is uniquely disgusting, but he’s not so much of an outlier compared to the rest of the Republican party.